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"There is no difference in functionality between current products and revised products containing user-replaceable batteries." So there was nothing "limiting"
by mdrzn 3mo ago
"There is no difference in functionality between current products and revised products containing user-replaceable batteries."
So there was nothing "limiting" them from making it already with user-replaceable batteries, they just didn't care enough until EU forced them (like all the smartphone brands). Love EU.
- xd1936 3mo agoExcept for an up-to-16% reduction in capacity, and slightly increased weight, depending on the product.
- vrganj 3mo agoThe 16% is for the Pro Controller though, to be fair. The Switch 2 itself loses 1% of battery capacity, most other products none at all. Your framing seems a bit selective to the point of being misleading.
- dcrazy 3mo ago16% less battery life in a controller is pretty significant!
- vrganj 3mo agoAgreed, that one's not great. But it seems to be the only product that has serious trade-offs.
- mdrzn 3mo agoYes but it's limited to only the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller. The basic Joy-cons have no change to their battery capacity.
- rtkwe 3mo agoIt's because they're basically already using user replaceable batteries, to the point I'm not sure what the SKU revision will actually do. My best guess is they won't be gluing the battery down any more? Otherwise there's not anything I can see they would need to change. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Joy-Con+Battery+Replacement/113634 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Joy-Con+Battery+Replacement/113...
- ablob 3mo agoI wonder if it will feel significant. I can't remember being limited by the controller battery. The runtime on a single charge is probably still going to be measured in weeks, and at that scale I feel like it doesn't really matter.
- AshamedCaptain 3mo agoGlad to hear, because that's how much a battery will degrade by itself in 1 to 2 years if you're average lucky.
- spaqin 3mo agoAt least if you're a heavy gamer like that you can pop a new battery in quickly when the old dies, instead of getting tethered with a cumbersome cable.
- lesostep 3mo agodoes it matter for coach gaming if I can have spare batteries and just swap them. That's honestly sounds better then increased life with only cable recharge
- mmunj 3mo agoseeing as the product itself already advertises that it's best to not charge it to 100% feel like nothing's being lost here no matter how one tries to spin it
- xnx 3mo agoYou still lose capacity with a smaller battery, even if you don't charge it to 100%.
- GuB-42 3mo agoYou mean an up-to-5% increase in capacity, and slightly decreased weight, depending on the product? The truth is that the product with the 16% reduced capacity (Switch 2 Pro controller) is 7g lighter and the one with the 5% increased capacity (Gamecube controller) is 5g heavier. Besides those two, the general idea is that the capacity is the same with 2-3% extra weight.
- rtkwe 3mo agoSome of these are no change because the existing versions already have pretty user replacement friendly batteries. The JoyCons for example already use the hard sided cells with plugs so I'm not sure what the change will actually amount to. If I had to guess it's maybe to change the glue or method of holding the battery in place to satisfy the ease of replacement requirements.
- bluescrn 3mo agoHow do those stats look 5 years later, when one is stuck with a degraded battery, and the other has had an easy battery swap?
- brookst 3mo agoImportant to understand non-functional requirements (NFR). They’re saying the core features are the same. They are not saying they’re identical in weight, repair cost, water/dust resistance, battery lifetime, or cost.
- Zambyte 3mo agoIt's not that they didn't care, it's that they did care in the wrong way. A non-replacable battery means people will be more likely to buy a whole new device if (when) the battery fails.
- endemic 3mo agoMy take is they didn't optimize for something that a small percentage of users would have problems with.
- square_usual 3mo agoIt's not really a small percentage of users. All users will have trouble with the battery - eventually. My DS4s ran out of battery life in about three years of usage; I still have one of them that I use wired with my PC, but I absolutely cannot use it wireless. Likewise with my DS5s - one of them barely held a charge 2-3 years in. I'm sure with good battery management you can extend the lifespan to be closer to 5-6 years, like my M1 MBP from 2021 that still has a 9+h battery life (though down from 12 as I remember), but that only keeps them going for a little longer. It's just a fact of how Li-ion batteries work that they will lose their capacity eventually. E: DS4 = DualShock 4, DS5 = DualSense; these are the standard PlayStation controllers for the PS4 and the PS5 respectively.
- munk-a 3mo agoI think it's fair to object to the point above on the basis that users have very little knowledge of how quickly batteries will fail and thus the cost of that failure is hidden from the market. It takes years or decades for consumer usage of devices to give new purchasers a fair picture of the hardware difficulties surrounding the battery - and, by then, there's a newer model with different qualities on the market. A good number of users will never hit troubles with their battery since electronic devices are treated rather cavalierly and replaced before those defects will surface, so I object to the wording that all users will hit that - but I still think it's clearly in the best interests of the majority of consumers to bargain for better lifetime extension support.
- juancn 3mo agoBattery life is shorter, and some are a tad heavier.
- josu 3mo agoIs it? >Battery capacity: 5172mAh, approximately 1% smaller than current version (5220mAh)
- flutas 3mo agoQuoting just one of the smallest one feels a bit... charged. There's small tradeoffs among all of them when you account for weight. For everyone else here's the full list: Switch 2 Battery capacity: 5172mAh, approximately 1% smaller than current version (5220mAh) Weight: Approximately 411g, around 10g heavier than current version With Joy-Con 2 controllers attached: Approximately 548g, around 14g heavier than current version (approximately 534g). JoyCon 2: Battery capacity: No change. Weight: each 2g heavier Switch 2 Pro Controller: Battery capacity: 897mAh, approximately 16% smaller than current version (1070mAh). Weight: Approximately 228g, around 7g lighter than current version (approximately 235g). N64 Controller: Battery capacity: No change. Weight: Approximately 234g, around 1g heavier than current version (approximately 233g) GameCube controller: Battery capacity: 525mAh, approximately 5% larger than current version (500mAh). Weight: 215g, around 5g heavier than current version (210g).
- cromka 3mo agoThey quoted what matters the most as it's for a device which has single shortest runtime on a battery: the Switch console itself. Because who cares if the controller lasts 27 or 30 days? (Or so, don't quite me on exact numbers).
- com2kid 3mo agoIt is typically a 40hr battery life. ~6 hours is quite a drop.
- parineum 3mo ago> So there was nothing "limiting" them from making it already with user-replaceable batteries, they just didn't care enough until EU forced them (like all the smartphone brands). Love EU. At the very least, the design will be more complicated to accommodate replaceable batteries. That costs money. There's a lot more to "limiting" than functionality.
- vrganj 3mo agoThey could've just designed it that way to begin with. Thanks to this regulation, they will the next time around.
- parineum 3mo agoA more complicated design costs more money to build/test and introduces more modes of failure in the final product.
- vrganj 3mo agoI'm not too worried. Removable batteries were standard fare for decades before Apple came around and set negative precedent. I don't recall it ever causing issues.
- dylan604 3mo agoIt's amazing how quickly we forget
- reaperducer 3mo agoRemovable batteries were standard fare for decades before Apple came around and set negative precedent. You must be newly hatched. I have plenty of devices in my gadget box with non-replaceable batteries that pre-date Apple's iPhones, and even its iPods.
- vrganj 3mo ago
- sva_ 3mo ago> like all the smartphone brands But there is at least some argument that smartphones nowadays have some pretty crazy waterproofness that I'm not sure is physically possible with a replaceable battery?
- everdrive 3mo agoThis is not true. There are old replaceable-battery dumbphones that were rated in feet of submersion.
- stymaar 3mo agoWe love to mock flat-earthers but believe it or not there are many people on HN who don't believe gaskets are a real thing.
- zamadatix 3mo agoIn more concrete terms, there are modern (2025) smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy XCover7 Pro w/ replaceable batteries which have IP67 (1 meter of water for 30 minutes) or higher certification. The back panel popping off too easily (and dumping the battery with it) is one of the common cons with the device though, so while you can get everything it is an extra layer of difficulty to try to design around correctly.
- rtkwe 3mo agoI expect smartphones to look more like the Pro Controller tradeoffs than the joy cons. The issue with replaceable batteries is you need the extra space for the battery structure so unless phones grow they'll have lower capacities. There's also IP ratings, phones have pretty good IP ratings these days often surviving drops in puddles etc where none of these products have any official IP rating to preserve when adding doors etc for replacement batteries.
- braiamp 3mo agoI'm baffled that we still are thinking that we want thin phones. We have a gigantic camera bump that would be removed if the phone was thicker. Who wants a razor in their pocket, like really?
- ProfessorLayton 3mo agoNot only that, but if phone batteries were user replaceable, they could be sold in multiple capacities. So people that want "thin" phones can keep their camera protrusions, and the people that want more battery capacity could get a pack that allows the phone to sit flush on a table. Literally win win win.
- rtkwe 3mo agoYou say that like it'd be a simple process to accommodate the different thicknesses of battery..
- ProfessorLayton 3mo agoI'm not sure what you're trying to say? The replaceable battery is either thicker, or it isn't. There's not much to accommodate. This is already a thing for some [dedicated] cameras like the Canon EOS series.
- rtkwe 3mo agoA thicker battery would need a new back built with a hump or standoffs across the whole back to increase the overall thickness to match the new larger battery thickness...
- bogdan 3mo ago> they just didn't care enough Of course there are extra costs. The parts and the extra assembly isn't free and it does add up.
- cogman10 3mo agoWe are talking about plastic parts and metal tabs. I'd be shocked if the actual impact on per unit price was above $0.10. Perhaps the most expensive part of this whole process is then engineering time to figure out how to place a replaceable battery.
- matchbok3 3mo agoDidn't care? Consumers don't care about this. Like most EU laws, this is a solution in search of a problem. Nintendo, like every other tech company, did the research and found that people simply don't care about this stuff. Now we have more complicated devices and have to buy our own batteries for what, exactly? There is just very little benefit here.
- scheme271 3mo agoI think consumers do care when they have to throw away a device or pay for a repair because the battery health has significantly degraded. This is really similar to the argument against having a standardized charging port or requiring usb-c charge ports for cellphones.
- matchbok3 3mo agoYeah, I agree. Also, there's little evidence that consumers really care about this. Batteries last a long time now.
- Danox 3mo agoThis is like the Germans decommissioning their nuclear power plants, What have they gained by doing so? Dependency on the Russians?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- marysol5 3mo agoWhile it's not functionality, the batteries will be physically smaller, and thus less capacity.
- Luker88 3mo ago* 2 products: no change * 2 products: -1%, -16% * 1 product: +5% more of a mixed bad if you ask me
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]